Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-04-08

Sabbath schools are dead, too. II is q
dead mother holding III her arms dead
child. But when superintendent, and
teachers, and scholars come on Sabbath
afternoons together, their faces glowing
with interest and enthusiasm, and their
songs are heard all through the exercises,
and at the close they go away
feeling they have been on the Mount OF
Observation-Disclosures is live school, and
it is characteristic OF a live church. There
is only one thing | have against the Sab
bath schools of this country, and that is,
they are too respectable. We gather into
our schools the children of the refined,
and the cultured, and the educated; but
alas for the great multitude of the chill
dren of the abandoned and the lost! A
few of them are gathered into our Sab
bath schools; but what about the 20, 00C
destitute children of New YORK, and the
score of thousands of destitute children
Of Brooklyn, around whom are thrown nc
benign, and heavenly, and Christian inf1u-
ences? 1t is tremendous question, what
is to become of tne destitute children OF
these cities? We must either act on
them, or they will act on US. We will
either Christanize them, or
THEY WILL EEATHENIZE Us.
II is question not more for the Chris
tian than for the philantbropic and the
statesman. OH if we could have al
these suffering little ones gathered to,
gether, what a scene of hunger, and
wretChedness, and rags, anc sin, and
trouble, and darkness! II we could see
those little feet on the broad road to
death, which thrc ugh Christian charity
ought to be pressing the narrow path OF
life; if we could hear those voices in
blasphemy, which ought to be singing the
praises of God; If we could see those lit
tie hearts, which at that age ought not to
be sOiled with one unClean thought, be-
coming the sewers for every abOminatiOn
| if we could see those suffering little ones
sacrificed on the altar of every inlquitOus
passion, and baptized with fire from the
lava Of the pit we would recOil, Cryi =
out: "Avaunt, thou dream of hell"
They are not always going to be children.
| They are coming up to be the
men and women OF this country. That
spark Of inlqutty thSt might now be put
out with one drop Of the water of life,
will become the Golf grafton of every
green thing that God ever planted in the
soul. That which ought to nave been a
temple of the Holy Ghost will become q
SCARED and blistered ruin-eVery light
quenched and every altar in the dust.
That petty thief, who slips into your
atOre and takes Il yard of cloth from your
counter, will become the highwayman of
the forest, or the burglar at midnight,
picking the lock of your money safe ana
blowing up your store to hide the villany
A great army. with staggering step, ald
blOOd,hot eye, and drunken boot, they
are coming On-gathering recruits from
EVERY GROG SHOP
and den Of infamy in the land, to take the
| ballOt-bOX and hurrah az the elections.
The hard-kuuckled fist of rufiisnism will
have more power than the gentle hand of
intelligence and sObrirty. Men, bloated,
and with the signature of sin burned in
from the top of the forehead to the bot
tom of the chin, WiH Look honest mn
out of countenance. Moral corpses,
which ought to be buried hundred feet
deep to keep them from poisoning the
air, will rot in the face OF the sun at
MONDAY. Industry in her PLAIN frock,
will be uuappreCiated, while thousands
Of men will wander around in idleness,
with their hands on their hips, saying:
''The world owes US living" 0, what
a tremendous power there is in iniquity
when uneducated, and unrestrained, and
un0lanChed it goes on concentrating, aud
deepening, ana widening, and gathering
momentum until it swings ahead with a
very triumph of desOlation, drowning
ike surges, scorching like flames, crush
ing like rocks! What are you going to
do with this abandoned population of the
streets? Will you gather them in your
churches2 II is not the will of
your Heavenly Father that one
Of these little ones should per
ish. If you have ten respectable
children in your class, gather in ten that
are not respectable. If in your Bible
Class there be twenty young Men who
have come from Christian homes AMI
elegant surroundings, let those twenty
young men go out and gather in twenty
more OF the young men of the city who
are lost to God AMI lost to society. This
outside population, unless educated and
restrained, will work terror in ages that
are to come. Years ago, at New Orleans,
when the cholera was raging feerfully, q
steamboat put out Just before nlghtfall,
crowded with passengers VINO were trying
to escape from the pestiIence. After the
boat had been out little while, the en-
gineer fell with the cholera. The captain,
in CONSERVATION, went down among the
passengers and asked: sis there anyone
here who knows anything about engineer
ing?' sWavthy man replied: 81 am an
engineer" "Well," said the captain, 81
would be very glad il you would taxi
charge of this boat" The man went to
the engine. The steamer moved more
rapidly, until after awhile the captain
and some passengers were alarmed, and
II, 70 NH tnn
and they found that this was
MANIAC ENGINEER,
and that he was seated on the safety
valve; and, as they came TO him, he said:
'I am commissioned Of Satan to drive
this steamer to hell" and he fourished
his pistol and would not come down. But
after awhile, through some stratagem, he
was brought from mis- position, and the
lives Of the passengers were saved. .,
my friends! that steamer had no such
peril as our Institutions are threatened
with, if the ignorant and unrestrained
children of this land shall come up in
their ignorance and their crime to en-
gineer our civil and religious institutions,
and drive them on the rocks. Educate
overthrow the institutions of this land
Gather them into your Sab
bath schools. congratulate you
that many have been gathered
Go forth, teachers, in the name of the
Lord Jesus Carist, and on the coming
Sabbaths may there be found gathered
scores and hundreds of these wanderers,
and instead of 1900 in the Sabbath school
we shall see 90 or 1000, and the grace
of God will come down upon them, and
the Holy Spirit viii bring them all into
the truth.
Another characteristic of q live church